What Do You Think? March 2011

We’d like to send out congratulations to our local photographer and Sun contributor, Erin Baer, on the birth of a health baby boy named Henry. You can read all about Henry on page 37, as well as see a few beautiful pictures of this little boy. In Erin’s article, she mentions that she’s been loving receiving old family photos from her uncle who has been digitizing their original family photos.

If any of you have access to old family photos, I would highly recommend taking on the project of scanning them into your computer. I did this with my Opa’s albums (the original form of scrapbooking), which contained tin types of his grandparents and photos of his family, his childhood, major events (WWII, travel, moving to Canada, marriage,etc) and the progression of his family. I was also able to capture his handwriting, the telegram he sent to my Oma from his warship telling her he was coming home and they could marry, and many of his stories before he passed away. One of my favourite things from this project was to see the longevity of family – to see my Oma so strongly in the face of one of her youngest grandchildren. Although it took it a bit of time, I’m so happy that I did it because now my children can see and hear about their family stories and all of my family has copies of these photos, too.

Carrying on the theme of family and relationships, this month’s question is “ Who was your best friend in high school and are you still friends?” This question was inspired by my oldest child who was wondering last week who my friends were in school and were we still friends. I’m blessed to have a few friends still from my childhood but my oldest friend is Oreola who I met on the first day of school in grade 7. She and I had meet briefly years before through a neighbourhood friend and I recognized her. Being the gregarious soul I am, I bounced up to her with a cheerful “hey” and startled her into spilling her soup onto her sweater! Twenty-six years later, we see each other many times a year, visit on the phone and are watching each other’s children grow up.

To finish up, I am receiving many notes from residents about the dog poo situation now that things are starting to melt. Rather that get into the annual publication of everyone’s frustration about this yucky situation, I’ll ask on behalf of all residents in Tuscany that you always pick up after your dog. It’s your responsibility. Enough said.